Read Arms and the Women for Free Online Page A

on their previous few meetings, that La Pascoe didn't much like her. Couldn't blame her, the WDC thought complacently. When I'm her age, I've no intention of liking good-looking women ten years my junior who work with my husband. Not that her own husband, if she ever bothered, would be anything like Chief Inspector Pascoe. It would probably be a comfort to Ellie Pascoe to know that her fantasies featured chunky, hairy men on surf-pounded beaches, not slim, nice-mannered introverts who would feel it necessary to buy you a decent French meal before checking into a good four-star hotel. But it was not a comfort she was about to offer.
The Great God Dalziel was speaking.
'Right, lass. One more time. You were really taken in at first?'
'Damn right I was. All I could think was, not again, oh God, it's not all happening again. You know, Rosie in hospital, me camping out there, all the fears . . .'
The memory of that time was still so powerful, it had the therapeutic effect of reducing her present aftershock to manageable size, and she went on more strongly, 'She'd only gone back to school for this final week before the summer hols. . . she insisted, and you know Rosie, when she makes up her mind . . .'
'Can't think who she takes after,' said Dalziel. 'Wanted to see all her mates, did she? And not miss this end-of-term outing.'
'Both of those. Also to get out from under me, I suspect.'
'Eh?'
Ellie said, 'Andy, I'm ready for that drink now. Please.'
She took the proffered tumbler and said scornfully, 'That wouldn't drown a tall gnat. Cheers.'
It went down in one. Dalziel, who'd poured himself a good three inches, poured her another millimetre.
'God Almighty, man! And it's not even your whisky,' she said.
'Not my stomach either,' said Dalziel. 'You said something about Rosie getting out from under you. Never had you down as the clinging-mother type.'
'No? Perhaps not.'
She brooded on this for a moment, glanced at Novello, then, with an effort at matter-of-factness, went on, 'Since we got her back, after the meningitis, I've hardly been able to bear letting her out of my sight. She goes in the garden to play and two minutes later I have a panic attack. I think in the end I just began to get on her nerves, so school seemed a desirable alternative.'
'Nay, you know what kids are like about missing things..’
'The trip to Tegley Hall, you mean? Well, there's another thing. They invite any parents who feel like giving a hand to go along. It's a big responsibility, ferrying that number of kids around somewhere like that. I was going to go, but last night Rosie suddenly said, "Why can't Daddy go? Miss Martindale says it doesn't just have to be mummies." Peter, bless his heart, said, why not? He'd like nothing better than a day in the company of his daughter and a hundred other kids. And he rang you and you kindly said that considering how hard you'd been working him for the past hundred years or so, he was long overdue a bit of time off . . .'
'Don't recollect them as my exact words,' said Dalziel.
'Peter is one of nature's paraphrasers. So, nothing for me to do but say, "Great. It'll give me the chance to get on with some work," and smile through my tears.'
'So you worried?'
'Of course I worried. I worried about what kind of mother I was. And I worried about them out there in the big wide world without me to look after them. And I worried about myself for worrying about them!'
Plus the other worries she wasn't about to air in front of Novello. Or Dalziel either, for that matter. Or indeed herself  if she could help it. Worries like damp patches on a kitchen wall, that you could stand a chair in front of, or hang a wallchart over, or even just ignore, but you knew that sometime you were going to have to deal with them.
'So I went upstairs, switched my laptop on and started working,' she concluded.
'That help with worries, does it?' He sipped his Scotch and looked at her doubtfully.
Something else she wasn't going to lay out in present